'As laid down in the Confession of Faith of the churches of Saxony': Horsley on the Reformed Catholicism of Anglicanism and Lutheranism

In his 1806 Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of St. Asaph, Horsley encouraged his clergy to be acquainted with "the Confessions of Faith of the different Reformed Churches", adding:

of the Churches of Saxony in particular; and you will have given the attention they deserve to the excellent discussions of the most learned and most enlightened of the reformers, Philip Melancthon.

This was not the only reference to the Augsburg Confession and to Melancthon in Horsley's Charges.  Earlier in 1790, in the Charge during his Primary Visitation of St. David's, he had said:

I should recommend a perusal of the Confession of Faith of the Church of Saxony, with the elucidations upon particular points which are to be found in the works of Philip Melancthon.

A similar understanding is seen in a speech he gave in the House of Lords in 1800, critiquing the enlightened opinion which presented Protestantism as "a sort of confession of disbelief", those who acknowledged "in our Lord Jesus Christ nothing more than the Socrates of Jerusalem":

... persons who, not adhering to the original principles of the Reformation, as laid down in the Confession of Faith of the churches of Saxony, and the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, think to reform the Reformation, by expunging, one after another, every article of our belief - the Trinity - the incarnation - the atonement - grace - the virtue of the sacraments as means and instruments of the gifts and graces of which they are signs.

These references - repeated over nearly two decades in public statements during his episcopate - do suggest that Horsley saw the Articles of Religion as more closely related to the Augsburg Confession than to the Reformed Confessions.  The last extract also points to a perception of similarities between Lutheranism and Anglicanism, with an emphasis on creedal truth and sacramental grace, a shared Reformed Catholicism.  

How might we interpret the significance of Horsley's understanding within the context of the pre-1833 High Church tradition? In placing Anglicanism alongside Lutheranism it offered a richer understanding of Protestantism (creedal, sacramental, and liturgical) as an alternative to enthusiasm, latter day Puritanism, and anti-Trinitarian Enlightenment theologies.  In doing so, it also firmly, and without any sense of embarrassment, situated Anglicanism amongst the Churches of the Reformation, offering a genealogy radically different to that which would be proposed by the Oxford Movement.  Finally, Horsley was standing within a long line of Laudian and 18th century High Church figures who pointed to the churches in Lutheran lands as a rebuttal to those who narrowly defined Protestantism along Genevan and Calvinistic lines.  

This could form the basis for an interesting counter-factual: what might have Anglicanism looked like without the Movement of 1833? If Horsley's understanding had developed and taken root, potentially as more Lutheran, including perhaps the emergence of a ceremonial akin to Scandinavian Lutheranism, thus addressing some of the aspirations to which the Oxford Movement gave rise.  This, however, would have been free of the delusions of Tract XC and the Movement's attempt to manufacture a non- or anti-Protestant genealogy for Anglicanism.

That said, perhaps it is not a counter-factual at all.  Perhaps the Porvoo Agreement and the subsequent Porvoo Communion was Anglicanism in these Islands heeding the advice of Horsley and recognising that we share a Reformed Catholicism with Scandinavian Lutheranism.